Knowledge . . . .
. . . continues to be the collector's best ally. It is also what has separated the true collector from the casual accumulator. The more you know, the better your puchasing and collecting decisions become.

Don't get burned!

Get real... Get educated .... Get smart.
Knowledge really is Power.

Welcome to "Fakes and Forgeries Purchased on eBay".

This is an ongoing experiment, so it will be evolving over the next year depending on my schedule. It was inspired by several eBay users / dealers and collectors who have emailed over the last few months, and warned me about various unscrupulous sellers who make quite a cash flow selling altered common stamps as rarities. Basically, modifying cheap stamps and selling them as "reference", which in polite company means a forgery or fake. Surprisingly, many people don't read the fine print and usually pay a lot of money for something that is basically worthless.

Jim Lehrer Newshour InterviewWatch my TV interview with Spencer Michels on the Lehrer Newshour concerning the good, bad and ugly on eBay. This was originally broadcast on August 15th, 2002 nation wide on PBS.

MSNBC Interview, October 9th 2002
Read my interview with MSNBC journalist Micheal Brunker. Titled the "Cautionary Tales of Two Auctions." This is part 2 of a 12 part news series concerning the perils, scams and shams concerning online auctions and the story of one of the biggest philatelic alteration rings on eBay. This ring still sells on eBay today and the staff of eBay is loathe to do anything about it.

The 1¢ Franklin Plating Archivewas the original web project that I had set out to do back in December of 2001. The web edition is basically a scaled back version of a set of high resolution photographic images that I hope someday to make available on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW or what ever the technology ends up being in 3 to 5 years time. Why 5 years you ask? There are 12 plates that produced the Franklin's and each plate has 200 positions or stamps. Additionally, in 1875 the Government created another plate with 100 more positions. That's 2500 stamps I have to locate and photograph. As of February 10th 2012, we currently have archived 1,374 images and have photographed well over 450 items from collections that have been loaned to me. 50% of the total is not bad for 10 years work.

DISCLAIMER:Thanks for visiting this site. I hope you learn something new as I am having fun doing this and stirring up the "doodoo" so to speak. You, the visitor, have my permission to copy my fakes pages and images for the purpose of showing others how to look for fakes and forgeries. You also have my permission to link to my pages and to share the link paths with others. I only ask in return that you send me an email if I have made a mistake, or have done some other technical blunder that in my rush to put these pages up would cause the visitor confusion. Please also visit my other website www.slingshotvenus.com and support the live music arts.